Gen. David Petraeus, the most celebrated American soldier of his generation, is to leave his post as commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, The (London) Times reported Tuesday.

The Times reported that the Pentagon aims to replace Petraeus, who was appointed less than eight months ago, by the end of the year.

Sources have confirmed that the search for a new commander in Kabul is under way. It forms part of a sweeping reorganization of top American officials in Afghanistan, which the Obama administration hopes to present as proof that its strategy does not depend on the towering reputation of one man.

[…]

Many of the moves are expected to coincide with a reduction in US troop numbers, which Obama has promised will start this summer, despite General Petraeus’s objections.

The news that the general himself would be leaving Kabul stunned close observers of US strategy, but the Pentagon insisted Tuesday it was a natural development, given the demands of running the war and Washington’s need for fresh blood in a crucial role.

“This is a heck of a demanding job,” Morrell said of General Petraeus’s central task of driving the Taliban from its strongholds in southern Afghanistan, which US commanders now claim is almost complete. “He will have to be rotated out at some point.”

Nothing to see here, folks. Please return to your hovels at once.

You remember General Patton, of course, and how he was always whining about the all the stress and how he didn’t want to fight and all he wanted to do was go home. Happens all the time.

The question is what this move, if confirmed, would mean for policy. Petraeus, more than anyone else, has been identified with the intensified military campaign in Afghanistan which, according to critics of the policy, has reduced prospects of a political settlement by alienating Taliban leaders who might otherwise be coaxed into peace talks.

Petraeus has been a towering figure in Washington and difficult to challenge politically. He had what was seen in the United States as a good track record in Iraq. And he was backed by Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — making it very hard for those within the U.S. administration who disagreed with his assessment to win President Barack Obama over to their point of view.

Moreover, Obama had already sacked two generals — Generals David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal — and could hardly dismiss a third. (If I remember rightly — and no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong — no president since Abraham Lincoln has changed his generals so frequently in wartime.) Promoting Petraeus would be far easier.

His departure, especially with Gates on his way out, could create the space for Obama to recalibrate Afghan strategy, backing away from the military surge and focusing more on a political settlement – if he wants to do so.

Appeasement will work. It has always worked before. The best thing you can do is ignore the fact of history that weakness is a provocation and appease, appease, appease your enemy.

If it hadn’t been for Neville Chamberlain and his highly succesful policy of appeasement, it’s difficult to imagine how the world would not have erupted into war in 1939. Thank the all powerful state that we listened to weakness and gave up Poland and Czechoslovakia to Hitler and gave up Manchuria and China to Tojo. Strengthening our enemies by giving them land and materials while becoming weaker ourselves is invariably a certain path to peace and prosperity.

As we get ready for Obama to show his liberal spots and cut-and-run as anyone not a moron always said Obama would do, consider that the same heroic General Petraeus who had previously been lambasted as General Betray Us simply because he commanded troops and fought for his country while a Republican was president essentially said that Obama’s 2011 cut-and-run timetable was merely a political decision.

Bob Shrum, who was a high political operative who worked on the Kerry campaign in ’04, wrote a very interesting article in December of last year in which he talked about that campaign, and he said, at the time, the Democrats raised the issue of Afghanistan — and they made it into “the right war” and “the good war” as a way to attack Bush on Iraq. In retrospect, he writes, that it was, perhaps, he said, misleading. Certainly it was not very wise.

What he really meant to say — or at least I would interpret it — it was utterly cynical. In other words, he’s confessing, in a way, that the Democrats never really supported the Afghan war. It was simply a club with which to bash the [Bush] administration on the Iraq war and pretend that Democrats aren’t anti-war in general, just against the wrong war.

Well, now they are in power, and they are trapped in a box as a result of that, pretending [when] in opposition that Afghanistan is the good war, the war you have to win, the central war in the war on terror. And obviously [they are] now not terribly interested in it, but stuck.

And that’s why Obama has this dilemma. He said explicitly on ABC a few weeks ago that he wouldn’t even use the word “victory” in conjunction with Afghanistan.

And Democrats in Congress have said: If you don’t win this in one year, we’re out of here. He can’t win the war in a year. Everybody knows that, which means he [Obama] has no way out.

Afghanistan was just a way to demagogue Bush in Iraq by describing Afghanistan – where Obama is failing so badly – as “the good war” and Iraq – where Bush won so triumphantly – as “the bad war.” It was beyond cynical; it was flat-out treasonous.

George Bush selected Iraq as his central front for sound strategic reason. Iraq had a despotic tyrant who supported terrorism. Saddam Hussein needed to be removed to mount any kind of successful peace effort in the Middle East. Iraq is located in the heart of the Arab/Islamic world. It has an educated population relative to the rest of the region. It also offered precisely the type of terrain that would allow American forces to implement their massive military superiority in a way that mountainous, cave-ridden Afghanistan would not.

Bush was determined to fight a war where he could win. Obama foolishly trapped us in a war that would bleed us. Why? For no other reason than pure political demagoguery. And he needs to be held accountable.

Bush won in Iraq; he changed the entire dynamic in the Middle East. And if anything is contributing toward the movement toward democracy in the Middle East, it is the fact that George W. Bush built a democracy in the very heart of the Arab and Muslim world. Barack Obama demanded that we fight in Afghanistan – where Bush had essentially mounted a containing operation because Afghanistan is and always has been the grave yard of empires. And he has been losing there miserably ever since he dramatically and massively escalated the war there.

I’ve tried to explain that to liberals. But better to teach physics to my dog than common sense to a liberal. Iraq was perfect terrain for the US to mount a successful military operation; and Afghanistan is the worst terrain imaginable for our tactics while serving as the best terrain imaginable for the guerrila tactics of the Taliban. You ever try to drive a tank up a mountain or fly a gunship into a cave? Bush succeeded in Iraq largely because he wasn’t a fool and fought in the right geography. Obama is losing in Afganistan because he’s a fool. Plain and simple.

Look at the casualties in Afghanistan: Obama more than doubled the 2008 casualties in Afghanistan under Bush in his first year. And then he took that figure that he doubled from Bush and increased it by over 57% his next year as Failure-in-Chief.

And now here we are in “preparation-t0-cut-and-run” mode after Obama utterly failed.

… the president decided to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan because, he said, “I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”

And liberals are the kind of scum – and “scum” is if anything to weak of a word – who continue to denounce Bush’s victory even as they cheer Obama for first losing and then cutting and running in defeat and disgrace.

Cynicism piled on top of more cynicism. A sauce of weakness poured over that. And then – like the cherry – appeasement on top.

Obama will almost certainly offer General Petraeus the Chairman of the JCS position. I hope General Petraeus turns him down and resigns. But General Petraeus will likely believe that he’s better serving his country by taking the top military position.

Here’s why I believe he’s wrong to do so, and NOT serving the country’s interests at all. Suppose you are a master mechanic and you take a job at a repair shop. I’m the owner of the shop, and I am a total disgrace who is determined to screw the customers and ruin their cars. You take the job because you think you can at least mitigate the disaster I create. But can you, if you’re carrying out my orders? You’re going to end up doing nothing more than assisting me while I screw the customers and ruin their cars. If you REALLY want to help the customers, your best bet is to quit and then blow the whistle on all the harm I’m causing.

And that’s what General Petraeus should do.

Most generals don’t want to do that. They don’t want to make that unfamiliar transition from military strategy to political policy. But as long as General Petraeus continues to serve a fool, he’s only going to end up implementing foolish and unworkable policies.